On Tuesday afternoon, Nashville Predators General Manager David Poile went on Jared and the GM and discussed numerous topics including the inconsistency so far in 2016-17, the landscape of the National Hockey League and the importance of the four-game home stand.

Poile also touched on the trade deadline looming on March 1 and how the upcoming Expansion Draft this June effects any moves.

“Let’s say this fictitious player that you’re talking about is available,” Poile hypothesized. “Let’s say it’s for nobody off our team. It’s for draft picks or younger players. And I get this player. We add this player to our existing lineup so we’re happy in March, April, May and June. But then we get to the Expansion Draft. This player now has to be protected. Which means somebody that we currently had protected we have to take off our list.

“So, the cost of the trade to get this fictitious player is whatever I gave up plus the difference between the player I thought I was going to lose in expansion and now the realization that, now, it’s not him. It’s really this other guy because I had to leave him unprotected.”

Assuming the “fictitious player” is the heavily-rumored-to-be-available Colorado Avalanche center Matt Duchene, what Poile is basically saying is a trade would appear at face value like this: